US SEC is developing an updated IFRS roadmap
24 Apr 2008
In remarks before the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, US SEC Chairman Christopher Cox outlined the benefits of IFRSs for investors in the United States.
He also discussed the challenges of ensuring 'consistent and faithful application of IFRSs throughout global capital markets'. Chairman Cox said that later this year, the Commission's staff will formally propose to the Commission an updated 'Roadmap' that lays out a schedule and milestones for further progress toward US acceptance of IFRSs. Click to Download Chairman Cox's Remarks (PDF 59k). Here is an excerpt:
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As even individual investors in the United States become globally active, our nation has a good deal at stake in seeing IFRS fulfill its promise. The United States has witnessed a remarkable growth in our own investors' interest in foreign securities. I came to Washington with President Reagan. When he was first elected, US gross trading activity in foreign securities was $53 billion. Today it's over $11 trillion. That's more than the GDP of Japan and China combined. And this isn't just institutional trading: roughly two-thirds of American investors own securities of non-US companies. The same is true for foreign trading activity in US securities – that has exploded during this period as well. Today, it's over $33 trillion. That's more than twice the GDP of the European Union. It's for these reasons that our work on converging to a single global accounting standard is so important. |
